Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim: Let women take the lead

The world needs to understand that Indigenous peoples are only 5% of the world’s population but protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity. As the guardians of forests, mountains, glaciers and islands we have found natural ways to protect all kinds of ecosystems.

There is no better group, with the traditional knowledge we have accumulated, that can help advise on how to adapt to changing ecosystems than Indigenous peoples. Our lives are tied to the environments we live in and when climate change impacts accelerate and we lose biodiversity, we can adapt, as we have always done; adapting one day to the next. Indigenous knowledge is intricately and sensitively linked to each ecosystem so it is a very special resource for climate solutions.

This is not about just consulting with Indigenous peoples

In order to unlock these solutions, Indigenous peoples must firstly be recognised as the stewards of the environment that they are and participate at decision-making level. This means they must sit at the table from the beginning of the discussion and be there when the policies are designed and when they are implemented. This is not about just consulting with Indigenous peoples or using them for information. It is about helping design a system – not as countries, powers or economies – but as human beings that are a part a common humanity united by the environment for which we have a universal role in protecting.

And this is not just at the international level where the conventions, treaties and declarations are made. This must also be at national level. For example, when countries ratified the Paris Agreement, they were happy to go to New York and sign it and say their parliaments will adopt it. But how many really have a national legislation that genuinely puts their country on a pathway to limiting global warming to 1.5°C?

Governments need to understand it’s not a matter of going to these international conferences and clapping with support. It’s about going back to their countries and changing legislation at national level. And when that is done, Indigenous peoples and local communities must be there and considered in the legislation and that land rights must be at the heart of it.

Give women the lead and see the progress that can be made

We need to radically address gender parity if we are to tackle climate change. Even at international negotiations, most of the focus is on men, and most of the delegates are men. They might say yes gender is important, but that’s just ticking a box.

And it’s the same at project level, nationally. There might be $1 million put aside to fund climate-related projects but only $10,000 or $20,000 of that goes to a female-led organisation. Again, they think they’re ticking the box. But it’s not working.

Reality shows us women are more than half of the working population. And that means women must be valued and given a greater voice. In my community, women are the ones who know where you can find traditional medicine; the plants that can reduce fever or stop diarrhoea; they can find the food that feeds families. They have knowledge that is useful for an entire community.

So, in order to protect these women from climate impacts, and recognise their value, they also need to be included in discussions on climate change from the beginning. And it’s not about achieving a quota, making sure that if there are ten participants at least three of five are women. It’s about genuinely wanting to consider what women have to say, giving women the right to express their voices; show themselves to be the experts who can take the decisions.

Let women take the lead and see the progress that can be made in averting catastrophic climate change. You see this in countries where there are female leaders, their climate change policies are better respected than where there is male leadership.

Setting the right example

So how else do we tackle climate change? Well of course, the obvious answer is to cut greenhouse gases. We need to reduce emissions.

But the lead needs to be taken by those already developed countries who will show the way by radical change, shifting away from damaging fossil fuels to renewables, and the skills and green economy that come with that.

Most developing countries are not contributing to climate change, yet they are – and will be – most impacted. Leaders of developed countries say that limiting global temperatures to 1.5 °C is important but we already have a 1.5°C increase in some countries. In my country, Chad, from 1991 to now we have had a rise of 1.5°C already. For the next ten years, if nothing changes, it’s going to rise to over 3°C or even 4°C. Now, during the dry season, we have 50°C in the day. So, when we have a temperature rise of 3°C or 4°C, we simply won’t survive there.

But there is hope. Countries have shown with Covid they can inject billions into the economy to save them losing power. And if they are able to do that with Covid, then they are able to do that with climate change.

But with climate change we cannot hide by wearing a mask, we cannot hide by closing our frontiers, we cannot hide by locking everyone away. We can boost the economy by making it green. Even if some countries lose power in the short-term, they will ultimately be building a better world. And what greater power is that.

Fonte: Climate Champions

O encontro do saber indígena com a ciência para resolver a alteração climática

Para enfrentar um problema da dimensão da alteração climática é preciso unir o conhecimento científico e o indígena, defende a ativista ambientalista Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim. Nesta palestra, ela mostra como a sua comunidade nómada do Chade está a atuar em conjunto com cientistas para restaurar ecossistemas ameaçados de extinção, e ensina como criar comunidades mais resilientes.

Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim and Lene Kielsen Holm talk Paris COP21

I’m working on Indigenous Peoples’ rights on environmental protection and we are working with the three Rio Conventions on Biodiversity, Climate Change, and Desertification. In regards to climate change, the impacts that we are facing in the community is at two levels. First are the environmental impacts due to weather and seasonal changes. We have less rainy seasons, and we have more dry seasons, very long, sometimes up to nine months. In my community as Indigenous nomadic peoples, our ability to get to water and pasture is impacted by these changes. The second thing is the loss of species of vegetation and animals. The biodiversity is becoming less diverse in the last decade, and the problems are really increasing every single day. Every year is much more difficult than the years past.

The impact is also on humans and our lives as it is impacting food security. There are more conflicts between the communities facing climate impacts because of the reduced resources we are fighting for. It is also becoming a crossborder and interstate conflict, as well as a political problem because we are moving from our country to the neighboring countries. There are fewer resources, less economies, less revenue, and increasing health problems. We are really seeing the problems at the grassroots level.

My goal at COP 21 is firstly to continue to work on the political documents agreed upon with all seven regions of Indigenous Peoples. We have key messages: our first agreed upon message is to have Indigenous Peoples’ rights included in the document. Second is the recognition of Indigenous and traditional knowledge. Third is the participation in all levels of negotiations, but also in the implementation of any climate change projects. The last issue is the direct access of funding for and management by Indigenous Peoples. We are giving input at every negotiation and we are proposing the language for inclusion into the paragraphs being negotiated by the countries. We also are actively using the Indigenous Peoples’ Pavilion, where we have the biggest space to gather.

The next step is to see that the Paris Agreement includes all of our demands. Once we have that, Paris is not the end but just the beginning. Then we can see in Morocco (the site for the next COP) and ongoing how this Paris Agreement can be implemented, such as at the international level through negotiations with all of the relevant mechanisms. Also important is its implementation at the national and local levels, where it can reach the communities who are really being impacted by climate change. This agreement should help with adaptation, mitigation, and with early warning systems.

Lene Kielsen Holm (Inuit, Greenland)

Arctic Region Delegate

Professionally, my work is focused on researching the human dimensions of climate change, working closely with communities on the ground. They have a huge knowledge about the environment so that they can tell us what kind of differentiated changes are happening in their environment.

I think our holistic cosmology is preventing Indigenous Peoples from handling these issues the way the Western world has. I think the appreciation of the traditional knowledge, or, as I like to call it, the Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, such as the Sami knowledge, Maori knowledge, and other Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge, is a differentiated kind of knowledge that can help Western science understand the dynamics of living resources. Globally, Indigenous Peoples have much more detailed information that can help Western science with their methods and ways of collecting data. They can help by bridging different ways of knowing. I think we can reach much better results than we are able to do today if Indigenous Peoples are part of this process.

I think that civil society has been increasingly showing us what an individual can be doing in your daily life to help with climate change. Actions such as educating others, enlightening them as to how to live in a more modest way, teaching others about not spending too much energy, like putting the lights out when you are not in the room and sparing the water that you use. At the same time the population of the world is growing, and, in underdeveloped countries, where the population is growing much faster and their emissions follow this growing population, more statistics need to show where this kind of pollution is happening.

This COP reminds me of the one in Montreal [and] the one in Copenhagen, but of course I hope there will be better results this time because they are really needed. We can’t spend 12 more years without doing anything because the newest science is telling us we should be more alarmed because of the failing permafrost. For instance, methane emissions are two times more dangerous to the climate and to the atmosphere, which will mean that the changes to the climate will accelerate even more. I think we should take these issues much more seriously.